General :: Any Best Way To Customize / Configure Kernel?
Oct 17, 2009
It's been a while since I bothered, so I decided to download and compile my own kernel. When I got to the configuration part of the process, I realized why I haven't bothered in so long. Is that the best way to configure a kernel? A single window with a 100 page option tree containing 50,000 options where you have to go through practically every module and driver ever created? I mean, there's obviously some hardware detection going on. How else would the kernel know which modules/drivers to load and which to ignore? Why can't it be taken a step further and have the modules used be compiled right into the kernel when it's installed?
Some things like USB devices and other peripherals, it makes sense to leave them as modules and have them loaded/unloaded as needed. But processor options? Sound and video drivers? Hardware sensors? I realize that the modular approach is the best way to go for Live CDs, since you never know what mix of hardware someone is going to drop that CD into. But once you click the install button, shouldn't there be a higher level of customization taking place? Has anybody taken any steps to automate this process? Why isn't the kernel configuring itself at installation time?
On the other side of the coin, I know you can copy your current kernel config with the command "cp /boot/config-`uname -r` .config" to give you something to get you started on. Is there a way to have all your loaded modules (shown in lsmod) selected to be compiled right into the kernel, and any other conflicting modules discarded? For example, why have ATI, NVidia, Intel, and a host of other video card driver modules compiled and available externally when usually only one set is needed? Why have modules for every sound card under the sun, when each system usually has only one sound card?
I just installed Debian 6.0 (squeeze) on my laptop with the GNOME 2.30 desktop on my Toshiba Satellite A100-VA3 laptop. I have never used GDM3. How do I configure GDM and customize my login screen and wallpaper?
I have configured iptables in my system and is working. But I cant find iptables kernel folders such as iptables/extensions/Makefile to make a utility Where to locate them? or how to download and install?
I found this documentation on how to edit the menu source file:but I have no environment variable $XDG_DATA_HOME or $KDEDIR. I am running Ubuntu 9.04. Also, after I have edited the menu file, do I have to restart to see that it worked?Also, if there is an easier way to customize, I would like to know that as well.
Any one know if it's possible to customise/personalise the Sound Theme in Mint8? - (I've just upgraded from Mint7, where this was fairly easily done but I'm afraid I'm stumped now!)
My task bar is quite broad. so when ever i open more than 6 windows at a time then the task bar adjusts the tabs in two row. how can explicitly specify the width for those tabs. so that they all fit in one line.
I have Ubuntu 10.10 Server installed on a 32 core machine(quad AMD Magny Cours 6128 ), and I was wondering what kernel configuration would optimize its performance?So far, I have only found the obvious configurations that are checked off:
1) Processor type and features ---> Support for big SMP systems with more than 8 CPUs 2) Processor type and features ---> Maximum num of CPUs 3) Multi-core scheduler support
Is there anything else I should consider?I plan on running multi-threaded programs with moderate amount of inter-processor communication, shouldn't there be some options related to the shared memory?
I want to learning and developing the kernel on the practice(not kernel module). What are some ways to boot the test kernel on the same system(with stable kernel) where I`m building a test kernel for debugging purposes.
How to configure and use the host to boot a test kernel then I can boot the system(with stable kernel) and fix the test kernel.
I wanted to give Ubuntu Studio a try, for music production purpose, as a musician and composer-writer. So I started with a Ubuntu 10.10 generic install then processed with the installation of Ubuntu Studio packages, including RT kernel at last. Everything ran smoothly until I installed this RT kernel...The problem appears to be LILO and its config, as well as fstab. I fear all of this is far above my abilities, this is why I submit my problem to the community. Here's what I've discovered when trying to configure LILO: $ sudo liloconfig
I have installed Linux SuSE 10.3 on a PC (Lenovo Thinkstation A58). However, when I start the computer I get the following error message:
"No valid Host_ID or host-name found."
I then use YaST to set up the network. I get the following error message:
"Unable to configure the network card because the kernel device is not present."
The computer has Windows 7 installed and everything seems to work fine. The LED on the Ethernetplug is blinking when using Windows, but not when using Linux. I guess this means that there is no driver for the Ethernet card (Marvell Yukon 88E8057). I have not found any driver for the card and am considering buying a new one. Which PCI card works with SuSE Linux 10.3?
When trying to install the nvidia graphics driver I get the following error-message:
ERROR: The kernel header file '/usr/src/linux/include/linux/version.h' does not exist. The most likely reason for this is that the kernel source files in '/usr/src/linux' have not been configured. How do I configure the kernel source files?
I have tried to install and configure Hudson in centos distro version 5.Installed hudson with tomcat by deploying .war files.after configuration was completed, builded a project.It displayed build was completed successfully.but I was not able to download output of build.
So I rechecked configuration,found that i havent set artifact file pattern to archive. how to set artifact file pattern and how to get build output. how to manage hudson by using configure system and configure options.what is the correct way to configure public hudson?.
Installed a TP-Link TG-3269 Gigabit card in a machine running OS 11.3 32 bit, when I go into Yast, Network Devices, Network to try configuring the card I get this errormsg: Unable to configure the network card because the kernel device (eth0, wlan0) is not present. This is mostly caused by missing firmware (for wlan devices). See dmesg output for details. Couldn't find any mention of the card in dmesg's output, (though the 8139 onboard card is in there) there is some stuff about pci host bridge but I don't know whether they would be relevant or not
The chip on the card says it's rtl8169sc but lspci lists it as being 00:07.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 8369 (rev 10) Done some googling and there don't seem be any drivers for a Realtek 8639 and it returns no matches from a search on realtek's site, but there is a driver there for rtl8169sc chips, which I downloaded and installed, no errors when installing it Even after a reboot I still get the same error in Yast's Network Settings screen, lspci still lists it as 8369 and the device isn't listed at all if I run ifconfig
but all the essential options are grayed out. Same goes for moving, unlocking and removing existing applets and so on.
I tried all the standard config, looked in gconf, searched in ~/.gnome, found nothing. I can change the session to Gnome and customize Gnome panel just fine, but if I switch back to NBR (Maximus), the panel returns to default and the entries are disabled again with a truly microsoftish persistence...
Does anyone know of a beginners guide to wmii? I saw this picture, and thought it looked pretty cool. I was wondering if someone knew how to make the currently playing last fm song to show up on the bar like it does in that picture. Also, does anyone know of a way to display the amount of charge left in my laptop battery?
I have Ubuntu 10.04 with AWN 0.4 I have two applications that I have given custom icons because they have no default icon. I have both icons' .png files stored in an icons directory in my home folder. At first everything seemed to work fine, but then I noticed one day that one of the apps icons had changed to the same icon as the other app... So I tried switching it back, but when I changed the icon of one app, the other one changed also! Now I can't seem to assign more than one custom icon to multiple AWN launchers. What is the deal?
is there any way we can customize like we can customize in xp (desktop properties > appearance > advanced)i want to customize things like title bar height etc.
I think this is the most commonly asked question.I'm unable to customize my desktop. It gives me error saying "cannot customize desktop".As far as I know i was able to customize when i was using ubuntu 9.04.Right now its Ubuntu 10.10 and its a clean install.I have Intel Corporation Mobile 945GME Express Integrated Graphics Controller. What do I need to do so that I can customize my desktop using visual effects.
The 486 kernel works just fine, and while I have only 1GB of RAM at the moment I hope to have 2GB someday and would like to take advantage of the dual core CPU, so I would like to configure grub to run the 686 kernel by default. For whatever reason, it runs the 486 right now and the 686 fails in a major way: there is no network connectivity at all. It could be plugged into my cable modem router and it shows no wired connections. The fact that one works and the other doesn't puzzles me since I haven't touched either since the install and a few rounds of upgrades.
I should mention I'm newbie but getting better; I managed to install debian on this x60, yet while preserving the factory install rescue & recovery partition and preserving the factory install MBR so that ibm-specific hardware functions (thinkvantage button, etc.) still work. This required me to use dd to copy the first 512 bytes of my debian partition to a file in the windows partition, etc., and modifying the windows bootloader. (I wish I had learned dd long ago--it rocks). I did this because if I ever resell the X60, the fact is most people use MS Windows and having that partition adds a perception of value to some potential buyers; not to mention I paid $ for it (I was young & stupid) so why should I delete it. I also backed up the recovery partition on another drive using dd over NFS in case the hd ever heads south.
Anyway, I've never been comfy with messing with the kernel. I did once recompile a module for ALSA because it had a bug in it for an old Yamaha integrated sound card on an old PIII and the newer version worked [alsa fails on this x60 too but I think I found a post on here that has a solution I will try later]. But I'm clueless as to networking modules, not to mention the correct module is installed already from Intel for this chipset. So what is there to do?
Here's a clue: the ifconfig output is radically different from the 686 and 486 kernels. Looks like hardware is not being detected since eth0 fails to show:
I would show the diff output below if it weren't so long--and not allowed--upon 2 text files, the first holding the output of modprobe -l under the 486 kernel and the second under the 686 kernel.
I'm trying to run extract-ikconfig because I've mistakenly deleted an old kernel config that I'd like to recover. However, when running the script from the latest (2.6.32.5) tree I run into this error:
Quote:
ERROR: Unable to extract kernel configuration information.
This kernel image may not have the config info.
Coincidentally, this happens with all of my kernel images. Is it a fixable problem? I should really set CONFIG_IKCONFIG_PROC next time..
I have recompiled a few kernels, but all on 32bit systems so not sure if that has anything to do with it.
Running Arch Linux 64bit, most recent version.
Kernel Output:
Code:
My first thoughts was that it might be my grub bootloader configuration, so had a big play around with that but it didn't fix it. Also made sure support was built for filesystems. However almost all that Fstab mounts are ext3 anyway, and certainly the root and /boot are. Now thinking it may be a memory error so will run a check when I shutdown.
Dell laptop booting from a USB stick with a CentOS 5.5 minimum installation.
Uncompressing Linux...OK, booting the kernel. Red Hat nash version 4.2.1.13 starting sda: assuming drive cache: write through sda: assuming drive cache: write through mount: error 6 mounting ext3 mount: error 2 mounting none switchroot: mount failed: 22 umount /initrd-dev failed: 2 Kernel panic - no syncing: Attempted to kill init!
1. Does minimum installation not drop on a kernel or initrd with ext3 support? I can't imagine that's true, but have to ask.
2. The USB stick is single partition ext3. Maybe there is some limitation specifically related to USB stick booting that requires boot to be FAT16 or FAT32? Except the CentOS 5.5 installer refuses to let me install on either FAT.
3. How can I do the equivalent of lsmod on a linux installation that will not boot? i.e. I have CentOS x86_64 running in VirtualBox, I can plug the USB stick in there, so how do I get information on the USB stick's kernel and initrd if I can't boot from it?
4. Is it possible to rebuild the i386 based initrd on this USB stick, when the computer is not booted from that stick, with a system that's x86_64 based?
System Info: Dell Latitude i686 Laptop which has run CentOS 5.5 and Fedora 12,13,14 in the past, and boots from Fedora 14 Live CD transferred to a USB stick. So I know USB booting is possible on this machine, and this stick.
The process of creating the stick:
CentOS 5.5 i386 on a USB stick. Old Dell i686 laptop which has previously run CentOS 5.5 installed from DVD, and has successfully booted from this same USB stick holding transferred Fedora 12,13,14 Live CDs. CentOS 5.5 was installed onto the USB drive directly by the CentOS 5.5 DVD installer (running virtualized in VirtualBox 4.02 on Mac OS X 10.6.5.). No errors or complaints during installation.
For whatever reason, the installer did not do some things correctly. First Grub wasn't working correctly, I got that sorted out and have the Grub+CentOS splash screen, it finds vmlinuz and the initrd, and then I get a kernel panic.
Ext3 was built into the kernel and that's why I'm getting this message. I do not know how the installer would have dropped a kernel or initrd during instalation that that don't contain such a basic thing that obviously comes in linux kernel 2.6.18-89 EL.
How can I customize the applications menu. I would like to have a menu option 'programming' and I would like to add emacs, DDD, eclipse to that menu option. So it would be something like this:
How to customize the Ubuntu Installation for your Distribution - TUTORIAL I have looked a lot in almost every page in Ubuntu, Google and some other Linux Distributions Forums, Help Guides and Tutorials, and have never been able to customize, or even find a valuable source on customzing the Ubuntu Installation, also known as Ubiquity. Now if you are planning on creating a LiveCD or Ubuntu-based Distribution using Remastersys or some program like that, then you will love this tutorial, as do I. First of all, make sure you have Ubiquity installed.Quickly goto Synaptic now, and check. Once you have that, go inside a terminal and type sudo nautilus.Then goto /usr/share/ubiquity. You will see some system files which I will now mention again in this tutorial for the sake of my tiredness.
Here you will see the images that are presented when you select your region in the installation process. You may customize it, but I hardly recemmond it as the areas I tell you to customize are far more rewarding. Now, just go inside the "ubuntu" folder and see the "logo.png". Customize it to have your own Logo and Distribution Name. After you finish that come out of it, all the way back to /usr/share. Now we go inside the big area, where we customize a LOT. Go inside "Ubiquity-Slideshow" folder. In this folder you will see the images and text that pop up during the installation of Ubuntu. Do you remember?
Now just go into Slides/icons and here you will see the beautiful icons of all the slides. You may notice the extroadinary graphics and input the Ubuntu team has put into most of these, and so I have decided not to customize this, but you can surely go ahead. However, for legal sake, I had to customize the logo which I have changed it to be mine (that is I deleted the Ubuntu logo and replaced it with a High-Quality version of my logo). Once you feel you have done enough, please go out of that folder and scroll straight down to customize the writing on the slides in the installation.
Here you will see 13 .html files. HTML is simple, you do not have to know anything in HTML to customize these files, however you must understand to not go out of the boundaries. Stay in the templates, because saying too much will look un-Professional and dodgy when it comes to size issues. I prefer Cutting huge paragraphs of writing in between the "" and starting to type about the subject in My Distributions way. Making sure that I do not exceed the previous 3-4 sentence that Ubuntu already had. Ok, to customize these .html files I will quickly show you one of them and customize it before I fall asleep on my keyboard. Right-click "accessibility.html". Click OPEN WITH and select GEDIT.
You will see something like this, however where it says Gosalia, that is my operating system, it used to say Ubuntu. CAUTION - Do not copy my work, there will be severe consequences, considering I took 5 minutes to write it and the rough work your Operating System installation will look...
Quote:
<h1 class="title">Accessibility in Gosalia</h1> <div class="main"> <div class="content"><ul>
[code]....
Enjoy, do this to all of them remembering to only write in between the <li> and the </li> Remember one thing, where it says "UBUNTU" you can change it, unless it is a file name, then DON'T CHANGE IT! Oh yes, and now when you create your ISO with Remastersys (or equivalent) then you will have your customized Installation ready in the LIVECD process, check it out! It worked for me, and it is spectacular. Making a Video about this now...
How do I rearrange or otherwise customize the desktop menus and icons in the Netbook Remix? For example, I wish to combine the System Tools and System menus, and I want to rearrange the icons in the Favourites menu. There is no Control Panel (that I can find) which will let me do this.
I was wondering if it is possible to specify a custom color theme that Ubuntu should apply to one application only. Specifically, I want to customize the tooltop color for Eclipse.
Fwiw, the reason I want to do this is that karmic's ambiance theme provides black tooltip backgrounds with white tooltop text, but eclipse (stupidly) uses the black tooltip background for content assist boxes while ignoring the tooptip text color and instead applying its own sytnax highlighting rules, which specify black text. This results in black text on a black background -- ugh!
